A lot of articles recently on China and Tibet, but today the Washington
Post has an article on how various Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka have
supported the use of violence in the fight between the majority
Sinhalese, who are predominantly Buddhist, and the minority Tamils, who
are mainly Hindus and Christians. See
http://tinyurl.com/2tv83m
The article does a fairly poor job of explaining how these monks
reconcile Buddhist teachings on non-violence and their political calls
for more war. For that, see a report on the Norwegian-facilitated peace
process in Sri Lanka, which describes the monks' attitudes towards a
peace process as follows:
"[M]any Buddhist monks have voiced consider-able hostility towards the
Norwegian-facilitated peace process in Sri Lanka, because they fear that
a political solution to the conflict will ultimately result in a
division of Sri Lanka into two separate states. Equally, Norway’s role
in the peace process is viewed with suspicion, as Norway is considered
to be pro-Tamil. In the opinion of many monks, a decentralized political
structure – for example, along federal lines – would contradict two
basic tenets of Buddhist teaching: Sri Lanka as a sacred land and the
Sinhala people as the protectors of Buddhism."
